This Week - #1 Product Failure
Welcome to the weekly Product Hustle Stack newsletter. Each edition, we provide an update on what’s new on the site and more importantly will use this as a shared space where we can share advice on a variety of product management topics, from general leadership questions to getting unstuck to how to create that roadmap.
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Q: How do you assess product management candidates, do you give them take-away projects during the interview process?
The job of a product manager is multi-faceted and often the task during an interview is to assess what process if any the candidates employ to get to a solution. If we expand on that Product Managers are also meant to master the ability to:
identify users, peoples or customers unmet needs
solve peoples, and users problems
drive growth, engagement and retention
Communicate broadly and often
Inspire everyone
Create amazing
Make decisions
There is no take-home test that will be an accurate predictor that the candidate in front of you possesses all of those qualities. So how do we assess product management candidates?
It's a great question and a topic I am pretty passionate about. Obviously the assessment criteria varies depending on the level of the position and what stage an organization is with. With that said I look for the following:
Outcomes, Outcomes, Outcomes. It’s all about the outcomes
Regardless of whether I am looking at a PDF, a notion page or some other digital artifact provided bu the candidate, I am looking for a clear outline of the outcomes they achieve as part of a team or on their own. Bonus points if those outcomes are numerical in nature. And now the outcomes don’t need to be achieved as a product manager, they can be improve conversion as a user experience designer or content strategist. Improved performance by x% as a developer.
Why? Because I want to assess whether they are feature or outcome driven.
The Cagan Four Risk Areas, Strength and Opportunities
The next set of questions I try to understand is what type of product manager they are or could be based on Marty Cagan’s four risk areas. They are:
Value Risk - Whether the customer will choose to engage or purchase
Usability Risk - Whether the product is easy to use
Feasibility Risk - Whether the product is built in a way that fits the tech constraints of the company
Business Viability Risk - Whether the product satisfy the business needs and requirements
Why? While the team as a whole needs to address those risks, by probing, we can see which particular risk domain the candidate is more comfortable with and which one or ones they aren’t. Also, often, out of these discussions comes out how collaborative the candidate is.
It’s the soft skills
Once we understand the candidate’s chops as a product manager, we try to gauge, the following:
Independence - Is the candidate that rare kind of person who can take the initiative in the pursuit of seeking truth and better customer understanding. Or do they just want to trust their gut and build?
Energy - Simply how much energy and enthusiasm are they displaying during the interview. A lot of the job is to be an authentic megaphone for the customer and solving a need. In other words how good of a cheerleader are they?
Drive - What drives them? What pushes them?
Humility - How many times do they say I versus we? While interviewing is about clearly demonstrating the part you played on a team, how much of the spotlight is shared.
Why? Most folks that make it are really smart, but how will they perform and treat others under immense pressure is what I am interested in understanding
Let us know what other questions you have about the product management interview process by simply replying to this email with your questions.
Q: What is new on the Product Hustle Stack?
Our first priority is content, content, and then content. This week we added 7 new resources that really resonated with us.
Resources on Why products fail:
Why Product Thinking is so Hard by Jeff Patton
Common PM Problem Areas by Marty Cagan
Your Product is Already Obsolete by Des Traynor
Resources on Maturing as Product Manager:
Product Competency Toolkit by Ravi Mehta who is quickly becoming one of our favorite authors
Project-based roadmaps versus Outcome-based (metric-based) roadmaps by Gibson Biddle
Resources on Interviewing:
A thread of product management frameworks by Shreyas Doshi which is a masterwork in compiling product management framework
Remember that you can find all of these on Product Hustle Stack'
TL:DR
Too Long: Didn’t Read this week is highlighting all of the goodies from the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, better known as WDDC. As Product Manager, Apple’s product experience cast a large shadow by setting and increasing customer expectations but also in the momentum within the developer community it generates
Till next week!
Sincerely,
Team Product Hustle Stack 👋
P.S. Let me know what you think! Is this useful? What could be better? Please let us know as we want to make sure this experiment gets feedback to ensure we are valuable. Just hit reply and let us know
Hi Sean, thanks for taking time to help the product community. Related to the post, I regularly get questions about where to go for product management training to better position oneself for a product role. There is a ton of agile PO training out there, and I know there are some product management courses out there too. Wondering if you or others have recommendations?